There is something about watching the faders on one's mixing console slide up and down without any help that makes you feel 'this is really what the word automation means'!

It is almost Heath-Robinson when you consider that each fader is driven by a small servo motor and a drive linkage, having touch sensitivity to determine when the operator has grabbed the fader, but is far from Heath-Robinson in every other sense.

NECAM has been with us in a variety of forms for a number of years now, under the guises of NECAM 1 and NECAM 2, neither of which were a roaring success. One hears tales of wrestling matches with the faders at times when the fader says it wants to do one thing and the engineer says he wants to do another. The system was also much slower than modern NECAM and proved difficult to use. It is clear that NECAM 96 is not just a re-hash of previous versions, but a complete re-design of the system, using a new fader and completely different control software.

SYSTEM CONSTRUCTION

The system consists of a large mobile keyboard which sits somewhere on the console, a processor rack with two disk-drives, a TV monitor and various parts of an Adams-Smith synchroniser. The number 96 comes from the total number of faders which may be controlled by the computer.

It must be made clear at this point that the system is purely a fader and mute automation system with minimum tape machine control and no direct synchroniser control from the console; the only additional facilities provided take the form of 16 event relays which may be programmed against timecode. Faders to be used with NECAM (if you've not seen them) are special motorised jobs with fairly chunky, metallic-looking heads and a pointer to indicate the exact setting: there are no other buttons of any sort down the side of the fader, and no nulling lights due to the nature of the system.

In its basic form, this automation system comes with one tape machine interface which is provided courtesy of an Adams-Smith 2600 synchroniser frame containing just one machine control module: in other words, you buy the facility for upgrading the system to one with multiple synchronised tape machines, but not the actual hardware.

Because the Adams-Smith 2600 is a modular system, it is very easy to add interfaces and other modules at a later date. NECAM 96 talks to the synchroniser via its RS422 serial interface, sending only the basic transport commands like STOP, PLAY, LOCATE, etc. It seems that if the engineer needs to enter any offsets, sync points, or other synchroniser functions he must go to the synchroniser's front panel, because NECAM has none of these on its keyboard, which could be rather a handicap in a post-production environment.

MIXING WITH NECAM 96

Obviously the most important factor about the system is not how it all links together but how easy it is to use in the operation for which it was designed.

Automated mixing with this system is so easy you could do it with your eyes closed, which is exactly how it should be. Gone is the necessity for the engineer to have a degree in Computer Science, gone is the problem of never having the fader in the correct place, gone are all those horrible nulling lights, update buttons, etc.

Instead, you locate the beginning of the track you want to mix, press START on the control panel, and then just get on and mix. If you make a mistake, or want to go back and change something half way through, just wind the tape back a little bit, put it into play again, and your previous fader movements will be enacted automatically while you grab the faders you want to change and do whatever you like with them. This form of mixing can work well in many situations where one is mixing until a mistake is made, going back say ten seconds, then carrying on again until the next mistake. The ROLLBACK key can be programmed to initiate a rollback of the tape by a given number of seconds, to be followed by PLAY again which automatically updates the mix. The great thing about NECAM in this situation is that instead of creating a new file every time a short section is remixed, the computer operation remains invisible and causes the new information to be incorporated in the mix the next time that section is played.

At any point in the mixdown operation it is possible to SUSPEND the current and the last mix so that they cannot be updated, at which point either mix may be 'kept' to the storage disk for recall later. Mixes will normally have been given a name before starting, and this is stored with the mix data as a useful 'handle' for recalling them. Unless SUSPEND is pressed, the 'previous' mix will be wiped from memory as soon as the tape machine is rewound, making the 'current' mix into the previous mix, ready for another update. In this way there are always two mixes available at any time in the memory, plus any others which have been stored on the disk.

Two toggle switches are provided at the top of the fader module, one of which can be used for making the fader MANUAL, whereby automation control is removed so that the engineer is free to do what he wishes with the fader, knowing that when he lets go it won't shoot off somewhere unexpected, and the other being the MUTE control which is pretty horrible, and unlike any other ordinary mute switch which could just be pressed momentarily. I am told that Neve is probably going to do something about these.

GROUPING

Making a number of faders into a group is great fun. Just press GROUP on the panel and touch the faders you want in the group, then press RETURN. Thereafter, moving any fader in the group causes all the others to zip up and down in sympathy, while it is still possible to alter one or more faders individually by holding one fader in the group while adjusting another. Sadly, the instruction manual was wrong on one point about subtracting faders from a group, an operation which seems impossible with current software unless the group is cancelled completely and remade.

LABELS AND EVENTS

Any point in a mix may be labelled with a title or a number, and this can be useful for locating cue points which may be addressed by their name or their number. You could press 'LOCATE Synth solo', and the tape machine would be wound to the point and stopped, with the mix ready to proceed from there onwards. Such labels may be captured either on the fly, or by typing in a timecode number, as may be all other events.

The 16 event switches may either be programmed to be momentary closures or on/off type. Each event may be given an individual 'pre-roll' of a number of frames to be used for such things as slow cart machine or CD player starting times which can be reliably quantified, and each event may be specified to one-quarter frame accuracy (shown on the display as a little box after the frame number which is filled in by a quarter, half, or three-quarters).

Labels and events can be displayed in lists if desired, and may be modified using up/down controls or numerical keys.

SNAPSHOTS

As well as providing dynamic fader automation, NECAM provides the facility for storing a large number of static fader set-ups or 'snapshots', which are useful for initial level setting or scene setting in theatre and TV production. Snapshots may be crossfaded over a pre-programmed period from 0-99 seconds automatically, or it is possible to define one fader on the console to act as a manual crossfader between two scenes, one at each extreme of the fader.

Recalling snapshots can be a three key operation, which would be cumbersome in a live operation, but situations such as this may be made a great deal easier by programming the sequence of keys into a SMART KEY, of which there are nine, acting very much like the Q-keys on Audio Kinetics' Eclipse.

There are a few points about NECAM 96 which I feel could do with attention, although as a whole the system is remarkably easy to use and fairly flexible.

It is clear that this is certainly a mixing system designed for use in the music studio, and perhaps not so relevant to the video post-production industry because of the lack of unity between the synchroniser and fader automation parts of NECAM. If NECAM were to be aimed at the latter market I feel that it would be necessary to redesign the control panel and software, as well as perhaps the synchroniser interface, so that all the machine control information, edit decision lists, timecode offsets, effects sync points, etc., etc., could be ordered and manipulated from the automation system at the console. This would be the key to a totally integrated audio-for-video post-production centre.

Another point that I noticed was that the display and control panel did not guide the inexperienced user very clearly as to what was happening.

For example, the new operator will be unfamiliar with which areas of the screen should change when a function is initiated, and it would be good if the relevant message, number or screen area were to be highlighted in some manner at the required time to attract attention. Likewise, it would be a good idea if LEDs were incorporated into the control buttons which could flash to indicate which key should be pressed next in a sequence. Obviously this might prove difficult in situations where more than one order of key presses was possible.

The control panel is presently a solid keyboard which has to sit somewhere awkward on the console surface, but I believe that Neve is investigating the idea of building it into a spare panel or mounting it on a squashy base like a bean-bag or a foam cushion, so that it could be thrown about a bit more easily.

While I was being shown the system it locked up completely once, just by pressing a wrong sequence of buttons on the keyboard, and even the reset button wouldn't bring it back so we had to turn the power off. This wasn't very impressive: it should never be possible to screw up a computer-based system just by pressing buttons on the front panel.

These gripes are small compared with my overall impression of NECAM 96: it's very easy to get to like moving fader automation because it's so natural and doesn't hamper normal mixing.

Using NECAM really made me feel that the automation was there to help, which is no mean achievement when many automation systems serve to baffle rather than to assist.